[My name is] Dorin C., from Kfar Aza. Married plus two. And this was our home. This is where we used to sit, every evening after the children fell asleep. That was our time together, me and my husband’s. It was quiet here, beautiful, idyllic. And now, everything is destroyed.

Dorin C. (credit: Ben Cohen from “Edut Rishona”)

[on Saturday, October 7th] we were in the safe room, and there was the [rocket] barrage. And after half an hour I think, we heard shots outside, outside the safe room, and shouting in Arabic. Then we realized that there was an infiltration in the kibbutz. I called the police, and told them that there were terrorists in the kibbutz. They didn’t know that there were terrorists in the kibbutz, and they said it would be taken care of. That’s how we were for a few good hours. 

“And we were all together, we were in complete darkness. No water, no electricity, no food.”

In the WhatsApp groups, you could see people who had terrorists coming into their homes. At 13:00, our electricity went out. I have a three-, four-month-old baby, and a boy who will soon be three. And we were all together, we were in complete darkness. No water, no electricity, no food. The air also ran out in the safe room at some point. And at 8:00 o’clock, it was quiet. So we opened the door, and I waved it a bit to let some air into the room. We closed it, and at 12:00, terrorists entered our house. They put an explosive device on the door of the safe room. All the furniture we had put against the door flew onto us, onto my child sleeping in the bed. My husband’s hand was injured, he was holding the handle of the safe room.

“Then we heard them pouring oil or some kind of combustible. And they set fire to our house, and they shot in every direction.”

Then we heard them pouring oil or some kind of combustible. And they set fire to our house, and they shot in every direction. Then we started hearing crazy explosions, we were also without reception. I managed to send a message that there were terrorists in our house, and then the phone went off. And I didn’t even know if it was sent. The army, it turns out, in retrospect, that they arrived, and they started fighting with the terrorists, and they fired cornets [a type of missile] at our house, and RPGs, and missiles. And we were like that for ten hours, breathing smoke in the safe room, with the baby.

It was dark. We didn’t see the smoke, we just smelled it. I think that’s also something that saved us, because we did not understand the magnitude of what was happening outside. We just prayed. We prayed…to stay alive. Then it became relatively quiet, and then the sun came up. We saw the light through the slits from the shrapnel that hit the door, or the bullets, I don’t know what it was. And every time we heard military jeeps coming, and as they were going, the terrorists came out and started shooting all around, all over the place. And every time the jeep came back, they went inside and barricaded themselves.

“We just prayed. We prayed…to stay alive.”

At some point, my baby got dehydrated, because I’m breastfeeding. And I told my husband that I would open the window of the safe room the next time I heard a jeep, and I was going to call out to them. And when we heard a jeep for the first time, I opened the window a little, put my hand out, waved my hand and whistled, because I was afraid that if they [terrorists] heard me, then they would start [shooting], or come in, or shoot from the window. And the army just didn’t believe we could be alive, and they just shot at us. They thought we were terrorists, and I quickly closed the window.

And after two hours, I heard a jeep again, and I heard voices in Hebrew. I just opened and screamed for them to come rescue us, that I had two babies with me. And they took us out through the window, and we saw all the destruction that happened here, we saw lots of bodies everywhere […] I didn’t recognize them, they were wearing cargo pants and a black shirt, and they were lying on their stomachs. So I didn’t see faces. In retrospect, it turns out that they were probably from the rapid response squad. Someone said that her husband was murdered right here, and she said that it was him because this very body was in front of me for half an hour while we were rescued. So it was probably the rapid response squad. 

Then they took us out of here, from Alonit [gas station]. The neighbors, the neighbors who live here, said that they saw from the window the army actually fighting the terrorists, inside the house, and every time they came and tried to enter and came back wounded. They tried to enter and came back injured, like that for several hours, from 11:00 at night, until they were rescued, the neighbors until 4:00 in the morning. That’s what they saw. We heard it later, much later.

27 hours. We were with the smoke for 10 hours. In total, 27 hours [in the safe room].

[…]We really liked this house. You can see how much we put into every smallest detail. I also made photo albums, right during Sukkot. I sat and made photo albums for both children. And everything burned, and everything was destroyed. It’s life, it’s not a house. It’s a life that just won’t come back. It is difficult.

“What we went through was not a war, it was a massacre.”

There is a message to the world that I would like to convey. What we went through was not a war, it was a massacre. In a war, two sides fight, here they came and massacred us, innocent civilians who had done nothing wrong to anyone. The evil that was here, what they did, it was just to come and destroy. It was not a war at any stage. And what the army is doing now is the most legitimate thing in the world. And I hope we can return here, that the situation here will change.

Dorin C.

Transcribed from a video testimony by Ben Cohen from “Edut Rishona”

This story was first published on october7.org.